End game of climate denialism: “We’re going to have our very large US oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, & start making money for the country” www.nytimes.com/2026/01/03/b...

‘Some nights I do not sleep’: Families remember 16 sectarian killings in 24 hours in North. To mark the 50th anniversary of the Kingsmill, O’Dowd and Reavey murders, I spoke to relatives of the victims, who are angry at the insults added to injury over the years. www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

There is, to my mind, no justification for the continued use by the UK Government of X as a platform for official comms. There hasn't been for some time, in fact, but if the latest developments around AI-generated image abuse and CSAM don't change the policy I really don't know what will.

They knew: Declassified files prove Stormont understood Lough Neagh’s pollution decades ago – but then made it worse. Stormont explicitly knew that intensive agriculture was killing our waterways, but then used public money to encourage more factory farms.

Day 516 of Birmingham's declared road safety emergency...

With the average weekly UK air temperature set to hit 10.05 degrees Celsius (50.1 degrees Fahrenheit), the UK is on track to have experienced its hottest year on record. www.bbc.com/news/article... , climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications...

The road to autocracy is paved with false equivalences.

During its worst drought in a century, Iraq signs a water security for oil deal with Turkey. The once rich Tigris & Euphrates rivers are drying up from climate change & mismanagement, leading to crop losses & a water crisis. edition.cnn.com/2025/12/21/c...

Irish nature is in crisis. We know what needs to be done & we know we can succeed. We only need the political leadership to deliver an ambitious Nature Restoration Plan and the funding to make it happen. www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/comm...

Lough Neagh fisherman takes Stormont department to court over faltering response to pollution crisis at UK and Ireland's largest inland water body m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/environ...

When we sit down to Christmas dinner next week, none of us want to be told that our actions are poisoning Lough Neagh — but much of what we choose to eat is hastening the death of this great body of water. The lie of cheap meat hides a vast hidden cost.

Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵 Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...

Sheffield management have withdrawn their threat of a lockout for w/c 5 Jan to facilitate further discussions with our excellent @sheffielducu.bsky.social negotiators. Massive thanks to the ucu team, and to everyone for having our backs. It’s not over yet, but maybe there’s a path to get there!

We're pleased to see this new #AirPollution alert system in the #WestMidlands. As with the London alert system, it will only be triggered if pollution levels go above legal thresholds, which are far higher than the World Health Organization recommends, but it's a good start.

‘World’s refrigerator’ runs hot and Arctic melt turns rivers orange ft.trib.al/El2Mce0

This article is now out in @bjpir.bsky.social! In it, we explain why government action to tackle the ecological crisis at Lough Neagh has lagged behind the apparent rhetorical consensus about its importance. Has Muir been set up to fail? #LoughNeagh #openaccess journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

'An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that the Russell Group university “does not have appropriate arrangements in place” for managing workplace stress and was unable to demonstrate that it is managing the risks associated with excessive workloads.' 1/2

Prior to these testing stats being obtained, Stormont officials were warned that, as a result of capacity pressures at many wastewater plants, "a significant proportion of the biological load that arises in each catchment does not reach the treatment works". How much of that ends up in Lough Neagh?

The 7th most-read Political Quarterly article of 2025 was: 'Are the Rights of Nature the Only Way to Save Lough Neagh?' by @lpcooley.bsky.social and Elliott Hill, which argues a single solution isn't enough to address ecological crisis. Read it now: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

‘No water, no life’: Iraq’s Tigris River in danger of disappearing

Today's @thetimes.com is reporting that this new book published by Springer, on sale for £180 hb, contains 'footnotes that cite scientific publications that appear to have been invented....' Who'd have thought it! www.thetimes.com/uk/science/a...

No idea what telly Lord Sewell is watching, because I can't think of a single show with this plotline let alone it being something that is inescapable for young white men who subsequently now face a crisis of masculinity drawing them to the far right?? 🙃

I only recently learned that the first significant antisemitic massacre in Europe was in France and the Rhineland, 1096 by Crusaders who took a detour on their way to the Holy Land to slaughter 2000 Jews. We keep thinking it’s past history but it never seems to be. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinela...

I know it's like the 47th most offensive thing here but the extent to which they have Not Thought About How This Works really pisses me off. Nobody is pure anything, you really don't have to go back that far before we all have so many ancestors that they're not so much "family" as just "some genes"

Sign this petition to support staff threatened with lockout at the University of Sheffield! www.megaphone.org.uk/petitions/no...

This entry I wrote for a reference work that's more expensive to buy than I could ever have imagined when I agreed to contribute now has two citations tracked by Google Scholar, both attributing things to it that it doesn't say. Absolutely cursed.

'The Battle of the Drina' is a singular insight into the lasting impact of war, made by ECC Trustee and founder of Studio9 Films, prominent filmmaker Fiona Lloyd-Davies. Broadcasting on BBC Radio 4 this coming Saturday at 8pm GMT and available afterwards via the BBC Sounds app or website.

"He was reputed to be the first person in the country to receive a football banning order when they were introduced, and spent several spells in prison in his younger days for football-related violence."

Ongoing decimation of British universities part 252: Apx. 1000 academic staff at University of Essex just received formal ‘risk of redundancy’ letters via email. Please share @ucuessex.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk

Northern Ireland continues show off just how broken UK counter-terrorism law has become...

"...the current US government believes that its national security is best served by the destruction of liberal democracy in Europe. In other words, the US is not (just) an unwilling ally, it is a willing adversary. Time to act accordingly." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

My latest @npr.org story: A Trump administration official has signaled a potential rollback of the racial and ethnic categories approved for the #2030Census and other future federal government forms

‘“I can’t pay my rent with prestige,” one sign said. Another was a mock-up of the cover of Great Expectations, with “Great” crossed out and replaced by “Reasonable”.’ Anna Aslanyan on the strike at the British Library, new on the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/de...

OK, the full story is a lot better - the banner is being relocated within the stadium (sorry not to have posted originally) www.nytimes.com/athletic/687...

it's gutting to see access and widening participation initiatives being binned across the university sector. ELCE here at Bristol, Essex Pathways here. nothing pushes my personal, visceral buttons like the idea of denying academic study to someone whose life it could change

Have nationalists and unionists set Northern Ireland's cross-community Alliance Party up to fail by handing it the task of tackling a blue-green algae crisis at Lough Neagh? Read @tagarin.bsky.social, @lpcooley.bsky.social and Elliott Hill's analysis in this new #BJPIR article.

It's time once again for my annual #treebybike post. This is the 12/19/42 cover of @newyorker.com, so one full year after the attack on Pearl Harbor. This would be the first real Christmas alone, or without a family member, for millions in the US. Gas and tire rationing had begun earlier that year.🗃️

"Our analysis shows that in the aftermath of extreme weather events, lower-income neighbourhoods are less likely to rebuild and do not return to their pre-disaster state, whereas higher-income areas rebuild and tend to improve...highlighting increasing disparities in their built environments."

#OtD 7 Dec 1938 the last of the International Brigades' British Battalion arrived by boat back in Newhaven, UK, after surviving the Spanish Civil War. The 300 brigaders were welcomed by a huge crowd before marching to a special train to London stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1307...

A friend just sent me a Le Monde article about the people putting up flags in Stirchley, Birmingham. "This article is better than nearly everything that’s come out about them in any UK paper - good to be calling them what they are. "

You gotta love the Sunday Life. Every week they're like Exclusive: Top Drug Dealer, "Hula Hoop," on the run after getting kicked out of local estate by "Big Jez."

Worth noting as well, none of these people believe that the state should be directly involved in any "re-industrialisation", so their only mechanisms here are (a) free money for corporations (b) scrapping regulations that protect workers, communities and the environment

1/As FIFA delivers Trump his peace prize there will be many uncomfortable chuckles and head scratches. But this is no joke. It is another peace in building a neo-royalist order based not on states but hyper elites. Orders use symbols for legitimation. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

FIFA will give the next Fifa peace prize to MBS in Saudi Arabia. Perhaps they should make that one about press freedom.

"The Christmas lights have gone up in Stirchley ..." “We don’t want a battle here. We want to go on with our lives, our work and bringing up our families." “Community is where change comes from ... It doesn’t look like coming in [to a neighbourhood] and putting up flags and not talking to anyone."

Proud of my friends, neighbours, fellow "mast avengers".

Excellent dispatch by @morganj0nes.bsky.social from the Battle of Ideas, where the ex-RCP network increasing resembles the dog that has caught the car

Yes, I think many don't realise the kind of organised crime groups running these sites. I know @tommygreene.bsky.social has written about how in NI there are actually paramilitary groups involved in this sort of activity: m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/environ...

Why have Northern Ireland's political parties found it difficult to agree on an approach to tackling the ecological crisis at Lough Neagh, despite apparent rhetorical consensus on the lough's importance? @tagarin.bsky.social, @lpcooley.bsky.social and Elliott Hill's #BJPIR article explains.

This is an insane response by OU.